ENTRE ELLE & LUI (BLURAY) - LI

Puccini Arias & Songs / Te Kanawa, Composer: Giacomo Puccini, Performer: Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Roger Vignoles, Conductor: Kent Nagano, Orchestra/Ensemble: Lyon Opera Orchestra, Date of Recording: 05/1996, Venue: National Opera House, Lyon, France. Madame Butterfly, La Boh�me, Turandot, Tosca and more performed by Kiri Te Kanawa.

Mozart: Don Giovanni / Barenboim, Cuberli, Meier, Rodgers Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Performer: Lella Cuberli, Matti Salminen, John Tomlinson, Joan Rodgers, Conductor: Daniel Barenboim, Orchestra/Ensemble: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin RIAS Chamber Chorus. For some reason, Daniel Barenboim's recordings of the Mozart-Da Ponte masterpieces have been overlooked. All three have splendid casts and among them, this may be the least spectacular, but it is nonetheless a wonderful performance. Joan Rodgers has a gorgeous voice, and sings Zerlina with radiant and womanly warmth - no voce infantile here, thank the gods. It's a pity she hasn't recorded more. She is, fortunately, in Barenboim's two other Mozart-Da Ponte operas, singing her heart out as Susanna and Despina. Furlanetto has an interesting take on the role of the Don. He usually sings Leprello, but here he sings the part of Don Giovanni with a rather unique interpretation. He plays the Don as somewhat of a fool, with more of a comic slant than I have ever heard. But humor was part of Mozart's original intention, and the Don does have his roots in street theater, so in this case a buffo Don works. Tomlinson as Leporello is more of the Don's straight man, and there seems to be a bit of role reversal going on here between the clownish Don and his more dignified servant. Tomlinson's voice can be, I think, rather boring a kind of voice-in-a-box, like Samuel Ramey. Good, strong, accurate, but not much drama or artfulness. Ewe Heilmann's ravishingly beautiful Mozartian tenor voice adds a welcome dimension of eros to the role of the too-often bland and wimpy Don Ottavio. Waltraud Meier's Donna Elvira, though occassionally a bit on the shrill side, and Leila Cuberli's Donna Anna are both rich, full-bodied, exciting and very womanly. Barenboim seems to have a talent for drawing out highly passionate responses from women.

Puccini: La Boheme / Nagano, Te Kanawa, Leech, Ambrosian Singers, LSO. Composer: Giacomo Puccini, Performer: Alan Ewing, Richard Leech, Roberto Scandiuzzi, Carlos Chausson, Conductor: Kent Nagano Orchestra/Ensemble: London Symphony Orchestra, Ambrosian Singers, St. Clement Danes Nearly a century after it's premiere in Turin in February 1896 we have a fresh and vibrant new recording of this opera - one of the best known and probably most loved in Puccini's output. Nagano is well able to delineate Puccini's large musical canvas, sweeping the colors of the orchestral scoring and the glorious vocal lines onwards and upwards with an intoxicating, rumbustious swagger. If Te Kanawa had made a recording of this role around the time she sang it at Covent Garden in 1976 (with Pavarotti as Rodolfo) or in the subsequent revival in 1979, it would have made for a fascinating comparison. Amazingly, this is her first recording of Mim� and she has successfully managed to integrate her mature, lustrous sound with the poignant vulnerability and gradually ebbing strength of Mim� to remarkable effect. It is a hauntingly convincing performance. Leech provides an excellent shaping of Rodolfo with a rich, passionate tone. Titus (Marcello) and Gustafson (Musetta) are as finely characterized and vividly sung as one could hope and all the ensemble interplays, especially in Acts III and IV, have a fresh and dynamic intensity.

Tristan & Iseult Bodel, de Bornelh, Riquier, Joel Cohen, Anne Az�ma (Iseult), Henri Ledroit (Tristan), Ellen Hargis (Brang�ne), Richard Morrisson (Mark), Andrea von Ramm (narr), William Hite (Watchman/Sailor/Monk), The Boston Camerata. Composer: Jehan Bodel, de Dia, Beatriz, Comtessa, Giraut de Bornelh, Performer: Andrea von Ramm, Henri Ledroit, Anne Az�ma, Ellen Hargis, Conductor: Joel Cohen, Orchestra/Ensemble: Boston Camerata. What we have here is a Warner Classics reissue of the award-winning 1987 Erato recording (it won the Grand Prix du Disque in 1989) of medieval poems, songs, and music associated with the Tristan and Iseult legends, compiled by Joel Cohen and played by The Boston Camerata. It certainly makes for different and fascinating listening. - John J. Puccio - Classical Candor.

SCARLATTI: SONATAS

LES PECHEURS DE PERLES

Vinyl LP pressing. 2024 release.

On Philippe Jaroussky's new album - dedicated to Schubert - he brings all his elegance, precision and exquisite phrasing to this fabulous repertoire. Accompanist is J�rome Ducros. The album features famous songs such as An Silvia, Du bist die Ruh, Die Forelle, Ave Maria. Opera Today wrote following a Schubert recital from the artists in London's Wigmore Hall: 'Abendstern'... was a masterclass in the art of song which the duo presented with characteristic unassuming eloquence."

An album dedicated to Johann Sebastian Bach piano solo, follows Alexandre Tharaud's very original Four Hands project. The protean French pianist brings a programme concentrating on Bach on the piano - in this instance mostly in his own transcriptions such as the Lute Suite BWV 996, the Johannes-Passion BWV 245 and many others. The album also features a few Bach HITS: Sicilienne BWV 1031, the famous Bach/Gounod Ave Maria and the Adagio from the Keyboard Concerto BWV 974, after Alessandro Marcello Adagio.

Songbook is the title of French clarinetist Pierre G�nisson's new album, recorded with pianist Bruno Fontaine, and several surprising guests. Featuring a laid-back mix of repertoire taken from the American Songbook and from French popular repertoire. Terrific lineup of artists includes Monica Bellucci on "I Got You Under My Skin", Lambert Wilson on "My Funny Valentine", Thibaut Garcia on Salvador's "Syracuse" and on "Smile", Youn Sun Nah in "La Javanaise", Kimberose on "What A Wonderful World".

To open the Met's 2017-18 season, powerhouse soprano Sondra Radvanovsky tackled one of opera's most fearsome roles, the title druid priestess of Bellini's Norma, who wrestles with love and betrayal before making the ultimate sacrifice on a funeral pyre. Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato sang Norma's friend and rival, Adalgisa, in Sir David McVicar's evocative production. To open the Met's 2017-18 season, powerhouse Bellini: Norma (Met Live Recording).

Vinyl LP pressing. Alexandre Tharaud pays tribute to composers associated with the courts of the French kings Louis XIV, XV and XVI. Lully, Rameau, Charpentier and Franois Couperin stand beside lesser-known masters: d'Anglebert, Forqueray, Royer, Duphly and Balbastre.

Angelic' is a word often used to describe Philippe Jaroussky's voice. The ethereal quality of his countertenor is intrinsic to his roles as both an angel and as a ghost in Only the Sound Remains, a double bill of operas by the distinguished Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, whose first opera L'Amour de loin has captivated audiences at such venues as the Salzburg Festival, Paris's Th��tre du Ch�telet, London's English National Opera and New York's Metropolitan Opera. Saariaho composed Only the Sound Remains with Jaroussky in mind. "I've been to many concerts that he's given in Paris and I love his voice and the way he sings," she told the Dutch website Cultuurpers when the opera received it's premiere in Spring 2016 at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, where this DVD and Blu-ray were recorded. She and Jaroussky worked together as she wrote the score, ensuring that it was tailor-made for his talents. The production - by the celebrated American director Peter Sellars, who declared that "Philippe Jaroussky sings like nobody else on the planet" - was subsequently seen in Helsinki (April 2017) and reaches Paris, again with Philippe Jaroussky, in early 2018. "Only theSound Remains is a profound and moving exploration of mortality and consciousness," wrote Classical Voice North America, "The score [conducted by Andr� de Ridder, who has wide-ranging credentials in contemporary music] is a swirl of choral and instrumental colors layered over a subtle electronic foundation withantiphonal effects. Structured like a series of interlocking boxes and punctuated bydelicate word-painting, this opera marks a breakthrough in Saariaho's ability to bring astory to life, with vividly imagined details that focus on sensory experience and hint atthe inner emotions of the characters." The Financial Times described the opera in detail: "The ending of Kaija Saariaho's new double bill for the Netherlands Opera lives up to it's name. Her subtle and meticulous blend of live electronics with acoustic sound can create curtains and washes of sound, sensual and evocative in ways that have become her trademark.... Tsunemasa (Always Strong) and Hagoromo (Feather Mantle), 14th-century Japanese Noh theatre works brought to the US... in the early 20th century and later pieced together into English approximations by poet Ezra Pound, form the basis of a libretto for an evening of music theatre co-conceived by Saariaho and director Peter Sellars. Both works... are scored for small ensemble with two singers - baritone and countertenor. Both narrate encounters with the supernatural.... Saariaho uses the Finnish zither-like kantele rather than a Japanese koto in her ensemble, and western flutes in place of the shakuhachi [a Japanese flute], but the Japanese sound-world is a clear source of reference, with pentatonic scales and onomatopoeic percussion deployed generously. Baritone Davone Tines and countertenor Philippe Jaroussky are perfect as the earth/spirit counterparts of the two pieces (ghost and priest for the first opera, fisherman and angel for the second), Tines with his earthy, virile warmth, Jaroussky with his ethereal purity, the music tailored for these two exceptional voices. Sellars, as always, sets out with consummate sincerity and solid stagecraft to convey a highly spiritual message... It is meticulously crafted and superbly performed. Saariaho is in fine form." Philippe Jaroussky's performance was summed up by France's Op�ra magazine: "In Hagoromo the voice of the French countertenor blossoms with a wondrous freedom and expressivity," while the S�ddeutsche Zeitung wrote that "Philippe Jaroussky is the noblest and most distinctive of countertenors... If he has gained fame as an exponent of virtuosic baroque arias, here

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